Sunday, October 19, 2014

Comet Snowball near Mars

A comet the size of a small mountain is about to skim past
Mars, and NASA hopes its spacecraft will be able to photograph the
once-in-a-million-years encounter. The comet, known as Siding Spring (C/2013
A1), is set to hurtle past Mars at a close distance of about 141,600
kilometeres. The closest pass is expected to happen on Monday at 4.27 am AEDT. Astronomers
do not expect it will come any where near colliding with Mars, but they do hope
it will be close enough to reveal clues about the origins of the solar system. That
is because the comet is believed to have originated billions of years ago in
the Oort Cloud, a distant region of space at the outskirts of the solar system.
The comet is flying through space at a breakneck speed of 200,000 kilometres
per hour. Another interesting thing about the comet, about a mile wide in
diameter, is that it is only about as solid as a pile of talcum powder.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Mars Orbiter Mission

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called
Mangalyaan "Mars-craft" (Sanskrit मंगल maṅgala
"Mars" + यान yāna "craft) is a Mars orbiter launched into Earth
orbit on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It
was successfully inserted into orbit of Mars on 24 September 2014, making India
the first country in the world to successfully send a spacecraft to Mars on its
very first attempt.

The success of the Mars Orbiter Mission,
lauded for its low price tag of Rs 450 crore, will boost India's
five-decade-old space programme.

With a spacecraft around Mars, India joins a
small group of nations that have successfully sent probes to orbit or land on
Mars. Others, however, failed several times initially.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Chef killed by severed snake head

A snake came back from the dead to deliver a deadly bite to
a chef, 20 minutes after he had chopped its head off.The chef was preparing a dish from cobra flesh
when the snake’s head bit him.

Victim Peng Fan had chopped off the head of the Indochinese
spitting cobra, a rare delicacy in Asia, to prepare for making the special
dish. But when he went to throw the severed snake head into the bin it bit him
on the hand, injecting him with fast-acting, deadly venom.

Police say Mr Peng died before he could be given lifesaving
anti-venom in hospital.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

44-Year-Old Fetus in 84 –Year-Old
Woman

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44-Year-Old Fetus in 84 –Year-Old Woman

A 44-year-old fetus has been
found in an 84-year-old Brazilian woman. The discovery came last Friday, when
the woman's intense stomach pains landed her in a hospital in Tocantins state
in central Brazil.

X-rays revealed the
unthinkable: a "stone baby." This is a rare phenomenon known as
lithopedion, in which the fetus grows and then dies outside of the uterus. With
the body unable to rid itself of it, the dead fetus is instead covered in
calcium as a means of protection, resulting in the "stone baby."

The X-rays discovered the
face, the bones of the arms, of the legs, the ribs, and the spine of the fetus,
which is believed to have died at between 20 and 28 weeks. That woman says she
does not want the fetus removed.